It is our memories and our past that make us who we are. Every morning, we wake up as the same person. Allah creates us every morning again, gives us consciousness, and we have all our memories in place telling us who we are, where we live, our past and our memories. The people we met, our family, our job, our memories are all the same. Thanks to Allah’s boundless beneficence, we don’t have to get used to or try to adjust to the people we see around or the house we live in every time we wake up.

Think about it for a second; you wake up one day and your whole memory is gone. You have no idea who you are. Think how you would feel if you had strangers telling you ‘I am your spouse’, ‘Mom, don’t you recognise me?’ and that all the details like the school you went to, birthdate, your friends and your family are all lost irretrievably. Surely, losing your memory like that would be a great test for you but probably now you have a little bit more appreciation of this great blessing you have and will be more thankful for it.

“They said, Exalted are You; we have no knowledge except what You have taught us. Indeed, it is You who is the Knowing, the Wise.” (Surat al-Baqara: 32)

People usually live their lives taking their memories for granted, not even realising that it is an amazing miracle. They are not aware of the fact that they go through a sort of resurrection after sleep and that their memories are recreated completely after sleep. But the truth is that Allah creates every cell again each time, along with every bit of memory with it.

If there were no such thing as a memory, what would happen? Our lives would be a mess, and since we don’t store the information we learn in our memory, we would have to learn everything from scratch every time we need it, just like a newborn baby.

People with short or long-term amnesia understand very clearly how difficult this can be. Those with short-term memory loss, or those who cannot remember what happened more than five minutes ago, will have to find their way home every single time. They will be unaware of potential dangers they may face as they will be devoid of the past experiences that would give them a heads-up to those threats.

Allah protects people by giving them such a precious blessing called memory. Allah allows us humans to use our memories with a simple principle. People keep benefiting from this amazing blessing, yet most of the time, take it for granted. Memory is not crucial only for our social lives; we need it just as much in our education and careers as well.

Therefore, memory is a great blessing bestowed on us by our Almighty Lord, and we should be properly thankful for it.